[SORRY FOR THE LONG POST I GOT HYPERFOCUSED]
So lately I’ve really been digging into other peoples opinions on their chosen MMORPG, how they approach playing it, why they still play it etc
What is it like?
To have a loyalty to a virtual world and the game that goes on inside it?
I have ADHD so, while I LOVE MMORPG’s… I find myself fluttering about between them fairly often, but never truly felt “at home” in any one of them, though I do tend to always return to Wow as I feel the core combat and minute to minute questing gameplay does feel better to me personally.
I see them as worlds, ripe for exploration, a strange new land, following the call of adventure!
But then once I’ve explored it, I feel I like to leave it for a while, let them add more new content to it for me to explore in the future, once I’m at level cap, and in Wow’s case been to the patch zones, I generally lose interest, there’s no where new to explore, no place I haven’t been to, no dungeon I haven’t plundered.
I feel that’s a mind set people used to have toward any RPG’s, MMO or not, but that seems lost now, most people are obsessed with high end progression systems in a single game, often forgetting they’re in a whole virtual world (in no small part due to there being no new incentives to go anywhere except the current expansion city hub)
Maybe I just have too much time on my hands, I realize, given the time sink nature of MMORPG’s not everyone wants to explore a world they’re unfamiliar with every other week/month, people have day jobs and simply don’t want to be starting from scratch in a new MMO all the time.
I do think there’s a magic to MMORPG’s that seems to have been lost on their players and the people who make them. No one raids because they and their group want to explore this big evil tower, same for dungeons, you’re there to get some gear upgrades, or complete a quest, there’s no magic, there’s no fantasy.
People aren’t interested in exploring a foreign land, they want to race through that land so they can prepare for the raid, which itself is just being done to prepare for the next difficulty of the raid, and so on and so on the treadmill continues endlessly.
I’m going to talk specifically about Wow, because this is a Wow forum, but it applies to most of the big MMORPG’s that we’ve all heard off.
At what point does the fun start? I’m not talking about Dragonflight, I’m talking about how Wow’s been for 7 ish years now, since Legion when all the borrowed power stuff really kicked off, when has the fun for those expansions ever really started?
As a kind of outsider who hops between these virtual worlds, it seems like utter madness to me, quite literally everything in Wow since legion has just been a constant power treadmill, with systems being cut down, thrown out and replaced, only for those replacement systems to then be thrown out too.
Is the fun the shot of adrenaline and dopamine from a piece of gear dropping?
Because most people expect everyone to just watch guides, even for lower M+ keys, so they certainly don’t get any sort of satisfaction by overcoming adversity as a group, they want the instant gratification of a gear drop, nothing more, anything that delays that and they’ll leave the group, and on occasion dish out some insults before doing so.
That’s just generalizing, not everyone is like that, I’ve come across some pretty nice people running M+ keys.
But my question still stands, where does the fun start?
Why are you still here on this 7 year long treadmill, even at the end when it looks like that treadmill is being replaced again in Dragonflight (albeit with a much more promising alternative)?
In vanilla-Wrath I can understand the appeal of raiding, the game and the player etiquette surrounding it promotes sticking with one group, a group of friends, a gear drop for 1 group member is still a reward for the whole group, so people in that group will happily work collectively to overcome a challenge, even if they individually stand to earn nothing.
There’s fantasy to it, you have your group and you want to go and raid this big evil tower and plunder it and overcome it’s challenges, hours can fly by whilst progging one singular boss, but it’s still fun because you did it with people you enjoy spending time with!
Quick note: Despite Blizzards poor attempts to implement a grand big narrative with weak, patched together major plot beats with 0 build up and -1 of the payoff, they still seem so fixated on raids being a part of “The big plot”.
In this post I’m discussing an awful lot about the fantasy of raiding, why it used to feel enjoyable, and why it doesn’t anymore.
Blizzard, please stop tying raids to the A plot, give me a big evil looking tower to raid, and I’ll raid it because it’s a big evil looking tower that’s piqued my curiosity. Giving us a plot beat that’s fairly easy to predict removes any and all interest I might have in raiding that big spooky tower, let me and my friends venture in and discover who’s hiding in there!
The constant pairing of “A plot” to raids, the focus on personal progression, and raids being data-mined is why there is no fantasy or excitement or mystery about raids any more.
Having the plot linked to the raids made sense back in Wrath, it was the end of Arthas’ character arc, and even people who’d never played W3 were invested in the narrative because Arthas, The Lich King, he was practically omnipresent through out the questing experience of that expansion.
This was quite probably the last time someone raided because they actually felt invested in the plot.
ANYWAYS THAT’S A TANGENT, BACK TO WHAT i WAS SAYING:
That isn’t present in retail, there’s such a high focus on personal loot and personal power that it’s scarce that people really care who they raid with, only that they do it for that dopamine kick from a gear drop.
and that’s fine!!
Games like this change, it’s inevitable.
But Raiding didn’t change with it, you still have a big scary tower full of baddies, but you rarely have the consistent group, the camaraderie, the desire to overcome adversity together and reap the rewards. None of what made raids enjoyable way back when is present, and people in an MMORPG are absolutely and undeniably crucial to how one experiences that game, that world, those challenges. The process of raiding and the raids themselves were never truly that fun, it was the experience, the fantasy that was fun.
Raiding should have evolved with the shift of focus to personal loot and personal power, it should have become more accessible to new players, to solitary players, LFR should have been set up to normal difficulty and treated as the standard way to enter a normal difficulty raid.
But due to the nature of MMORPG’s and how players approach it, I know some of you haven’t experienced any different, Wow’s raids are just how raids are and sometimes the very suggestion of changing that seems to offend certain people as if it would genuinely ruin their experience of the game (Despite actively complaining about the very things I’d propose be changed)
Buuut that’s my personal criticisms on Wow’s endgame progression systems, to those of you who do actively partake in these systems, those who do rush through an expansion launch to prep for a raid, those who have teams that do scheduled raids and M+, what is it for you that makes you stay? what do you find fun in? is there any fun? or is it simply out of obligation to your group, or out of guilt for all the years you’ve already invested into this game?
As I said, in my view it’s just been a tedious progression treadmill since Legion with no meaningful rewards or rewarding experiences for active participation.
And I do want to state this: I’m not trying to have a jab at any one who does actively enjoy Wow’s progression and has happily been doing it for years, I’m glad you’re enjoying it, God knows, while Wow does deserve it’s criticisms, there are far too many people that insult it unwarranted, having never even made an account or tried the game (looking at you, FFXIV elitists). But I, personally, struggle to see the appeal, especially when there are so many other worlds and communities to explore!
So, if any one is still reading, to conclude I’ll reiterate my question.
what’s keeping you playing? what keeps you loyal to this world we’re all invested in, instead of venturing between other worlds as I do? Is it the world? or is it because you do enjoy the power treadmill?
I’m just kind of really fascinated from a psychological standpoint I guess? because most MMORPG players do stick to one game, and that makes sense, but I’ve rarely ever felt compelled to do that, despite the fact that I do love MMORPG’s.
